


Idle Thumbs

by WorryinglyInnocent



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: A Monthly Rumbelling, F/M, NSFW, vibrating panties
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2016-08-31
Packaged: 2018-08-12 06:48:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7924732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WorryinglyInnocent/pseuds/WorryinglyInnocent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What began as a joke present from Ruby becomes a source of embarrassment for Belle when a certain Mr Gold, object of her electrical affections, comes into her library unexpectedly…</p><p>Based off the Monthly Rumbelling prompt "vibrating panties".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Idle Thumbs

**Rated:** NC-17

 **Prompt:** Vibrating Panties

 **Summary:** What began as a joke present from Ruby becomes a source of embarrassment for Belle when a certain Mr Gold, object of her electrical affections, comes into her library unexpectedly…

 **Word Count:** 3210

**Idle Thumbs**

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I kid you not.”

Belle glanced from her best friend’s face, smirking like the cat that got the cream, back down into the bright pink gift bag that she had just been given as a birthday present. The bright pink gift bag was not itself problematic. Belle was having slightly more trouble coming to terms with the contents of the bag. These contents consisted of a pair of black lacy panties and, in pride of place atop them, a small remote control.

“Did you seriously buy me vibrating underwear for my birthday?” Belle exclaimed.

“Keep your voice down!” Ruby hissed, looking around the diner where they were ensconced with burgers, iced tea, and a birthday red velvet cupcake with a silver candle stuck haphazardly into the frosting. “We don’t want to give the other patrons heart attacks!”

Belle looked around the diner; the only other patron was Leroy at the bar and she highly doubted that the mention of vibrating panties would be the cause of his demise.

“Did you seriously buy me vibrating underwear for my birthday?” she repeated, her voice nonetheless a whisper this time.

Ruby nodded, her grin widening.

“I love you as a friend, Rubes, but not really in that way…”

Ruby rolled her eyes. “I know that, silly. I think everyone in town knows that you only have eyes for a certain pawnbroker.”

Belle grimaced. “ _Everyone_?”

“Well, everyone except said certain pawnbroker, who for all his sharpness seems to be incredibly obtuse when it comes to matters of the heart. But yes, I seriously bought you vibrating panties.”

“For the love of all that’s holy, Ruby, _why?_ ”

“Well, for a start you’d be surprised at how effective they are. Mulan and I got each other some at Christmas and we’ve had all kinds of fun with them since.”

“OK,” Belle said warily, a little unsure of where Ruby was going with this.

“And naturally, they’re a far more discreet solution than any other battery operated… aids.”

“A far more discreet solution to _what_ , Ruby?” Belle was on the verge of leaving her birthday gift on the diner table and running back to the safety of the library. It was not the first time that her friend, desperate for her to be having as many orgasms as possible, had gifted her sex toys or various types of erotica for birthdays or Christmases, but now she was ever so slightly worried.

“Your long, lonely days sitting behind your issue desk,” Ruby replied sagely. “Just pop these on, flick the switch, and go for a ride whenever you feel like it. And if someone happens to walk in, just switch them off again and you’re ready to return to being the pure and demure librarian that we all know and love, no need to explain sticky fingers or why your hands are not above the level of the desk.”

Belle shook her head in despair and not a little embarrassment.

“Ruby, of all the things you’ve done, this takes the biscuit.”

“Why?” Ruby seemed genuinely hurt by Belle’s lack of enthusiasm towards her gift. “We all know it won’t be the first time that the library’s halls have heard you moan Mr Gold’s name as his imaginary counterpart makes mad passionate love to you on the issue desk.”

“Ruby!” Belle hissed indignantly, but there was nothing she could do - Leroy had since left the diner, perhaps scared off by the talk of Ruby and Mulan’s sex life, so they were now alone, and unfortunately, her friend’s words were true - she would have to admit to having touched herself in the library during one of the ever more frequent slow days. And she would have to admit that in those moments, it was indeed the enigmatic pawnbroker whose image filled her mind.

“Well,” Ruby said, her grin broadening once more at seeing the furious red blush that was spreading slowly over Belle’s face, “you don’t have to ever use them if you don’t want to. Or, you know, you could actually make a move on the object of your affections and share this wonderful gift with him, I’m sure he’d appreciate them more than you seem to be doing.”

“Somehow I don’t think they’ll fit him,” Belle said dryly.

“Well, like I said, you don’t have to wear them.” Ruby winked as she got up from the booth to return to work behind the counter. “Something tells me you will though.”

Belle just glared at her friend’s back.

X

It was quite possibly the most ridiculous idea she’d ever had, but here she was, sitting behind the issue desk, wearing what could pass for ordinary black lacy panties beneath her unusually sedate knee-length skirt, staring at the anything-but-innocent little remote sitting anything-but-innocently on the desk in front of her. She picked up the little device, easily concealed in the palm of her hand, and glanced over at the door. It was the middle of the afternoon, and she wasn’t expecting any custom until the last half hour of the day, once people started to get out of their varying workplaces. The few dribs and drabs of people who came in to use the library during lunch hours had come and gone, and there were no children’s events scheduled for the afternoon.

Belle shook her head, unable to believe that she was actually considering doing this. She should wait, go home, and enjoy these panties further in the privacy of her own bedroom.

She had tested them out before, obviously; she felt that it might have been tempting fate to have their debut performance be in the library, and although she hadn’t admitted it to Ruby yet, she had been more than satisfied with the results. Indeed, a blush began to colour her chest at the memory of the time spent groaning and writhing on her bed clad in nothing but the flimsy black lace…

She bit her tongue and pressed the little button on the remote to turn on the vibrations, and immediately she felt the pleasurable humming sensation between her legs, and a smile came over her face. Her eyes fluttered closed as she began to concoct a suitable fantasy in her head, wriggling in her chair to get the best friction of the buzzing fabric against her most sensitive places. She thought of Mr Gold, of the long and deft fingers that handled his antique treasures so gently and delicately, and she imagined what those fingers would feel like on her bare body, stroking her all over until her skin turned to gooseflesh, playing her like the old cello she had seen in the back of his shop.

 _“Miss French_ ,” he murmured in her ear as he turned her over, the glass display cabinet cool against her naked breasts as his hands traced patterns down her back and over her buttocks, fingers finally slipping between her wet folds...

“Miss French?”

Belle’s eyes snapped open just as she was about to let out a moan of completion, and ice flooded her veins, the beginnings of her orgasm fleeing with the rush of reality. Mr Gold - the actual, real-life Mr Gold - was standing in front of the issue desk, his head on one side and a slightly perplexed, slightly concerned expression on his face.

“Mr Gold!” she exclaimed, somewhat overly brightly, hoping that would make up for her red cheeks and abstracted manner. “How can I help you today?”

Despite the cold rush, the sensations in her panties were still there, the vibrations still rubbing gently against her skin and working her body back towards that wonderful peak, despite the inappropriateness of the current situation. Surreptitiously she clicked the little button clutched tightly in her palm, and a fresh wave of horror filled her when nothing happened. She clicked it again, but her panties kept on buzzing happily, teasing her swollen clit to distraction.

Oh... _hell_.

“I was looking for a book on watch repair,” Mr Gold began. “I’ve recently come into possession of a very charming item and… Miss French, are you all right?”

Belle nodded enthusiastically, not quite trusting herself to speak at that moment in time and wondering how on earth she could discreetly put an end to her predicament.

“Right…” Mr Gold did not sound at all convinced, and there was an agonising pause whilst neither of them spoke and Belle wondered if he could somehow hear the vibrations from under the desk. “Watch repair,” he repeated.

Belle saw her chance and took it.

“I know just the thing!” she lied, standing up so quickly that her chair flew backwards and smacked against the wall. “Excuse me just a minute, I’ll go and get it.”

She practically sprinted away from him down the nearest aisle, one not at all related to watch repair, and once sufficiently out of sight, reached up under her skirt and pulled off her knickers, kicking them to hopefully scoot them away under a shelf and taking a few moments to compose herself. At least the vibration problem was solved, although it had now presented an entirely new problem, namely that she would now have to deal with Mr Gold whilst wearing no underwear at all.

“Miss French?”

The man in question peered around the end of the aisle, and Belle was suddenly aware of just how wet her little fantasy had made her. She crossed her legs, pressing her thighs together, and smiled as brightly and innocently as she could.

“I, erm… I’ll be in antiques and vintage,” Mr Gold finished, obviously discomfited by the librarian’s strange behaviour, and he gestured towards the aisle opposite to the one that Belle had just escaped down.

As soon as he had disappeared again, Belle leaned back against a shelf of Japanese history books, and buried her face in her hands to hide her groan. This could not be happening. She’d just managed to convince the man that she was helplessly infatuated with that she was a complete weirdo, and in doing so had ruined all chances that she might have previously had with him, which were already zero, but had now dropped into the negative figures.

Still, there was no way in which this could be any worse, so she figured that it would be best to try, however hard it might be, to put this episode behind her and move on, whilst still planning her escape from Storybrooke and imminent arrival in somewhere she had never been heard of amongst people who would have no idea of her current burning embarrassment. Peru, maybe. She had always wanted to visit Machu Picchu and this was her perfect opportunity.

On somewhat shaking legs, she made her way back to the issue desk and hovered beside it for a while, unwilling to sit down lest she create a damp puddle on the back of her skirt. Perhaps she could surreptitiously leave Mr Gold alone in the library and go to the bathroom to clean herself up a bit? Or better yet, rush upstairs to her apartment and grab another pair of panties? She flapped a hand in front of her face in the vain hope of cooling her furious blush and presenting a somewhat presentable facade to Mr Gold when he came to check out his books. Turning round to lean on the counter, she was reminded of her previous fantasy of Mr Gold taking her from behind in his shop, and she spun around to try and distract herself, and her eyes alighted on the trolley of returned books next to the issue desk. Yes, reshelving, that was the thing. Some activity would be good, and it would not involve sitting down nor thinking about Mr Gold. She pushed the trolley over to the romance section and began to place the books - a large stack of Harlequins returned that morning by Mary Margaret Blanchard - back in their shelves.

Unfortunately, the titles and summaries of these particular books did nothing for her state of agitation, and she rested her hot forehead against the cool wooden shelf. What had begun so pleasurably was turning out to be the worst afternoon of her life. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Mr Gold wandering through the aisles with an armful of books, showing no signs of wanting to check them out.

On any other day, Belle would never want to wish him away from the library. In fact, she would have been using any trick in the book to get him to stay and enter into conversation with her…

Oh, she had it bad. Very bad. What was that saying? _The devil makes work for idle thumbs._ Look where her thumbs had got her today.

“Miss French?”

Mr Gold was calling from the issue desk. Thank goodness, that meant that he was ready to leave and she would have the library to herself again in which to die of embarrassment, but not before killing Ruby for making the suggestion that had led to this enormous predicament. She suppressed a sigh. It wasn’t Ruby’s fault. She may have made the suggestion, but that didn’t mean that Belle had had to be so impulsive as to take her up on it. She got to her feet from where she had been crouching to rehome a book with a particularly sultry cover and teetered her way back to the desk on legs that were still slightly wobbly, and she slipped behind it to take Mr Gold’s library card and check out his latest acquisitions. However, the man showed no signs of handing over the books, and indeed appeared to be rather embarrassed at the whole situation himself.

“Erm, Miss French, do you have a lost property box?” Mr Gold began. “I believe someone may have… mislaid something in the Far Eastern History section.”

“I…” Belle looked up and realised in horror that it had been in that exact aisle that she had discarded her misbehaving panties earlier a split second before recognising the offending garment held delicately between his neatly manicured finger and thumb. To her intense shame, she saw that they were still vibrating. How long was the battery life in those things?

She grabbed the panties, shoving them into her skirt pocket and feeling them buzzing awkwardly against her thigh, which did not in any way help matters in her groin.

“Yes. I’ll make sure that they’re returned to their owner,” she gabbled as she took the books from him and began to stamp the due dates into them with a wholly unnecessary violence that made her, in retrospect, feel rather sorry for the poor books. Once they were all stamped, she practically threw them back at him.

“Are you all right, Miss French?” Mr Gold asked, alarmed.

“I, erm, yes, I… Headache,” she mumbled. “I think I need to shut up early and go to bed.”

That was something she definitely needed to do, but sleeping off a headache was not at all what she planned to do once she was safely between the sheets.

Mr Gold nodded his agreement. “Yes, I think that might be sensible.” He tucked the stack of books under his arm and began to make his way towards the library exit. “I’ll have these back to you next week,” he said, before adding, “would you like me to turn the sign to closed on my way out?”

Belle nodded and as he did so, she sank back into her chair behind the desk, now uncaring for the state of her skirt. Right now, all she wanted was for the ground to swallow her whole.

But first…

She grabbed the panties out of her skirt pocket and tossed them unceremoniously in the waste paper basket below the desk, where they continued to vibrate forlornly.

X

A week had passed without her seeing Mr Gold, and Belle wasn’t sure if that was because she was assiduously avoiding him, or because he was assiduously avoiding her, but nevertheless, the time inevitably came for him to return the books that he had borrowed on that fateful day.

“Good afternoon, Miss French,” he said courteously as he placed the books down on the counter and Belle began to scan them back in.

“Good afternoon Mr Gold.”

For a moment she wondered if he was going to make some kind of allusion to her being out of sorts the previous week, and it did indeed look like he was on the verge of opening his mouth and saying something for the entire time that she was busy with his books, but as she handed his library card back to him, he shook his head with a little rueful smile and left the building, citing something about a man coming to view a particularly expensive antique chair he had on sale.

Belle let him go, deciding it would be best to curtail her previous little flirtation and conversation attempts for the foreseeable future. Or perhaps forever. Well, at least until she’d managed to make good her move to South America.

She picked up the books that had been returned and made to put them back on their shelves when she saw a sheet of paper sticking out of the top of the heavy tome on pocket watches, and she slipped it out. If Mr Gold had left some important notes in the book then that would mean that either he would come back or she would have to go back for them. Since she was fairly sure she would probably never be able to look the man in the eye without blushing again, neither of these scenarios seemed particularly favourable to her at that moment in time.

She flipped the sheet open and looked at it, and had she been living in a cartoon, her eyes would have popped out of their sockets.

 _Miss French_ , the note read. _I do apologise if I caused you any embarrassment last week by arriving in the middle of your… let’s call it technical difficulties. Truth be told I’d had another motive in mind for my visit that day but in the, erm, heat of the moment, I felt it imprudent to pursue that course of action. Needless to say, I didn’t actually need this book, although it has proved extremely informative and I will be borrowing it again if any vintage timepieces come into my collection…_

Here the note tailed off, as if he had realised that he had begun to ramble in his nervousness.

_What I mean to say is that I had come with the intention of inviting to you come to dinner with me, and if it is not too disagreeable, I would like to make this same invitation now._

_Please let me know if you’ll accept.  I do, however, fully understand if you’d rather I didn’t venture into the library again._

_R Gold._

He’d written his phone number on the back.

Belle slowly looked from the note to the waste basket. The panties had long since been discarded with the other trash, and she did not miss them for all the trouble that they had caused, but now, perhaps, she had something to thank them for…


End file.
